We've "re-loaded the pipeline!" Today Southwest extended our booking inventory out to May 9, 2008. Take heart, Spring Breakers and Easter Hoppers--you are now free to move around the Country!!!!
As usual, we have a few surprises in store for you in the March - May 2008 Schedule. We're increasing our service in a good number of city pairs in March and April, with a number of brand-new nonstop markets. We'll add new service between Phoenix and San Francisco on March 8, a threesome of new nonstop destinations for Philadelphia (Austin, San Antonio, and St. Louis) on March 17, and brand new nonstops between Denver and San Diego effective April 4. In addition, thirteen other markets will receive additional departures during the March - May time period. To view the entire new service press release, click here.
However, a more interesting story (well...from a Schedule Planning perspective, anyway!) about the March Schedule is our Saturday schedule. It's different than Saturday schedules in the past--really, really different. In fact, it is a completely different animal than the schedule that will operate the other six days of each week, with many Saturday flights operating at a different time than the rest of the week, and with a different flight number. I've blogged about our Schedule Optimization progress over the years, but up until now our schedule has been more or less the same across all seven days of the week. Sure, we've cut back some on Saturday morning and Saturday night flights, and again on Sunday mornings--but the rest of the week looked like seven peas in a pod. However, effective with Saturdays in the March Schedule, we've implemented our first reoptimization within the week. Saturday now has a completely different, and more optimal, set of schedule assumptions than the rest of the week.
How will this impact, and benefit, our Customers? Plenty. Travel patterns are significantly different on weekends, particularly on Saturdays, than they are during the rest of the week--yet because of time constraints we weren't able to "rejigger" the schedule sufficiently to give you a Saturday schedule that closely met your specific travel needs. The new March 2008 Saturday schedule, has been designed, as a whole, to do just that: to get you where you want to go, when you want to go, as conveniently as possible. So, besides better Saturday departure times, we're actually adding a number of new, Saturday-only nonstop markets--between Dallas and Harlingen; Manchester and Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood; Reno and Ontario; San Diego and Salt Lake City; and the big winner in the Saturday-only nonstop free-for-all, is Orlando, which gets Saturday service to Omaha, Salt Lake, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa. In addition, we've added extra Saturday departures in over 50 existing nonstop markets--making it easier for you to get to the weekend destinations you want to visit. You could say that starting next March, Southwest's Saturday schedule will be a real "departure!"
We intend to make this twice-weekly optimization strategy a feature of every published schedule, and as our Company gets used to operating a waaaay different schedule on Saturdays, we might make crank up the volume of Saturday-only nonstop markets to better meet the travel needs of our Customers. And who knows....as we more deeply imbed optimization technology into our scheduling processes, we eventually might be able to optimize each day of the week individually to better match Customer need. Of course, we'll need a LOT more experience to make that work....but we'll keep trying!
Happy booking, everyone....and thanks for reading "Nuts About Southwest!"
Comments
when will SW release a schedule past 5/9/08?
Bill,
Thanks for sharing the background on the new Saturday schedule. Someday optimizing each day of the week sounds like a real (and challenging) opportunity. Maybe add some late evening Friday/Sunday on the high volume short hauls while trimming some of the late evening Tuesday/Wednesday flights that go out light? Add some early Monday morning flights for commuters? Might there be some seasonality shifts further down the road, such as boosting Florida frequencies in the winter then shifting the extra capacity to more northern markets in the summer? Fascinating stuff, thanks.
Laurence is exactly right and so elegantly said. You have lost this family of 5 customers. I know you don't care anymore. Anyone want a companion pass and 20 rapid rewards tickets? I need to research a new credit card.
I agree with the others. You have destroyed the rapid award system and tricked us. You have lost 5 customers in this family. I have lots of rapid reward tickets and also a companion pass and 2 SW visa credit cards and they are useless. Like the other major airlines, you too are about to lose you base and deserve to after you have tricked us . By the way you might want to train you telephone staff in alittle bit of customer service as people find out about your latest tricks. They are rude and also as you lose customers maybe they might want to start worrying about their own jobs. But as one rude agent told me that he has had his job for a long time and he is not worried. He also told me that it is customer relations and NOT customer service and I had to agree with him there. But he didn't get that either. Now your little silly messages while you are on hold or sittting in the plane are not so funny anymore. You have angry customers and now you need to treat with a lot more respect and seriousness. But you do not get it and that is why you will not be anymore successful than the other airlines.
Oh, I'm disappointed, Bill! :( Oh, well. That's okay. I'll always LUV SWA. :) You know, I need to use my gift from SWA (I got a card & gift for a free upgrade from Hertz in October because I've been an RR member for a year) to take another trip! :) It expires March 31, 2008.
P.S. I used to think about being a TV broadcaster! I really did. I went into a totally different major, though.
P.S.S. Happy belated birthday to Oklahoma! I didn't post this yesterday (Friday), but my home state, which I still live in, celebrated its 100th birthday Friday. If anyone knows the words to our song (certainly I do), I'll give you $61, 819.71! :)
Thought for the day: Since there's a footlong sandwich, why is there not an armlong?
What a disappointment. I've always thought you guys were smart. Once you were but the changes in seat assignments, fares, A-Lists, etc. would suggest the company has lost its compass. Seems someone at Southwest wants to be like the other airlines, and the company has forgotten that its customers choose Southwest because it is not like the other airlines.
More responses:
Mike Barnum--my pleasure! Southwest is frequently in touch with the staff of the airports we serve, and they are always their own best advocates. SMF is among the best--and we'll definitely keep SMF-BWI in mind. And don't worry....Pete is *always* involved!
Nicholas, hey, buddy! Long time no talk to! That's a GREAT idea....we'd love to be able to tailor-make our schedule for special events like that, but we're getting more and more able to add flights for special events on short notice, so now that we know about the late Saturday Cal football games we can look at adding flights back down to SoCal for you guys. I hope all is well for you--BTW, don't know if you noticed on a previous blog post of mine, but my son is a married cop now.....and we have over 250 737-700's. My now time flies!
Kim, no, there's no truth to that rumor.....and the fact that Leah will be doing her newscasts with a mouse-ear hat on, humming the music from "It's A Small World," is totally unrelated. :)
Vince, we're looking at adding a second SDF-LAS flight, but we're just not there yet. As for why we have primarily afternoon or evening flights in low-frequency markets out of LAS, our research suggests that traffic leaving LAS prefers to leave in the afternoon, well after hotel checkout time, and would rather spend more time in Vegas and get home late. So, our schedules reflect that. However, almost anything into or out of LAS "works" so occasionally we violate that. If we did add a 2nd LAS-SDF flight, though, it would most likely be in the morning, probably between 9 and 10.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Bill
Bill,
Always great to hear about more new service from LUV. I admire the respect that Southwest has for its employees and customers...keep up the great work!
I would like to see SDF-LAS see some of these additions in the future, with at least a morning departure from LAS-SDF, as Southwest used to fly when the route debuted in 2000.
I also was wondering why many of the nonstops to east-coast cities from LAS depart in the afternoon or evening as opposed to midday or A.M. departures. I usually find it more convenient to depart LAS in the morning and connect to arrive (say in SDF) in the afternoon as opposed to arriving at 12:30AM. To me, I would think that people would prefer to arrive back home/to their travel destination at a more convenient time than at midnight.
Thanks!
Thanks for the post, Bill! SWA is definitely #1! :)
Also, thanks, Kim! Boy, if SWA did create a TUL-MCO route where I could hang out with Winnie the Pooh & Friends, along with Mickey & Minnie Mouse, & be home for the night, I would LUV that! :)
"Live in the Newsroom, Leah Johns, News Channel 8."
SWA LUV! :)
Bill,
Congratulations to you and your team on another mammoth job of turning the dials and tweaking the gauges! Your task is Herculean, and yet in reading through the comments, virtually no one is thanking you for getting it done and for pushing the available inventory out so far. I remember one of your blog posts not too many moons ago when everyone was up in arms about NOT having the chance to book too far out, and how you and the folks in Scheduling changed that. But, people have short memories and are quick to find something else to complain about.
I'm also sorry that so many bloggers chose to "hijack" your post and turn it into a continuation of the griping about the changes. Your post is about available inventory and the addition of a special new set of Saturday schedules, and very few responders have thanked you for either one. Well, let me at least go on record as saying "thanks" for all of your work and for trying to help people with some new options on Saturdays!
One question, though. The rumor I've heard is that creating a special TUL-MCO routing was specifically designed so that Leah could go down and hang out with Mickey and Minnie and still be home for the night. Is that true?
Please keep up the great job,
Kim
External Blog Boy :)